bookshelf

The Encyclopedia of Sports Parenting

Dan Doyle, F81, F87, with Deborah Doermann BurchHall of Fame Press
Turns out there’s more to being a good hockey mom (or dad) than donning lipstick and making like a pit bull. As he dispenses advice on everything from multi-team commitments to college recruiting, Doyle sticks to one basic game plan: sideline the helicopter parenting, and put ethics in the starting position. A former college basketball star, a father of five, and the founder of the Institute for International Sport, Doyle urges a “values-based sports parenting philosophy” that puts “character development” and “training the mind” on an equal footing with scoring goals and winning trophies. As children hone athletic skills, parents must channel their inner Aristotle and work on “finding that ‘golden mean’ between deficiency and excess.”

From Edison to iPod: Protect Your Ideas and Make Money

Frederick W. Mostert and Lawrence Apolzon, E78Dorling Kindersley
Thanks to the overflowing pool of entrepreneurs in our high-tech global economy, intellectual property is a hot topic. This comprehensive guide untangles the intricacies of patent law in plain language, and with bold graphics and recognizable examples (Coca-Cola’s iconic contours, Amazon’s one-click checkout, and the secret recipes for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce). Even readers not stoking the fires of invention will enjoy the fun facts scattered throughout. Bet you didn’t know that Abraham Lincoln was the only U.S. president to hold a patent (for an invention to lift boats over shoals), or that U.S. Patent No. 4,753,647 was granted to Jamie Lee Curtis for a diaper with a built-in pocket for clean-up wipes.

Bikila: Ethiopia’s Barefoot Olympian

Tim Judah, F86Reportage Press
Watching sinewy Ethiopian runners break the marathon tape has become ho-hum, but it wasn’t always so. In the 1960 Rome Olympics, Abebe Bikila, a palace guard for Emperor Haile Selassie, won the marathon running barefoot. The first black African to win gold at the Olympics, Bikila ushered in the era of East African dominance in distance events, demonstrating the previously unrecognized connection between high altitudes and endurance, and symbolizing the dawn of hope for a newly decolonized continent. Equally inspiring is the story of Onni Niskanen, the colorful Swedish trainer who discovered Bikila, made him a champion, and devoted his life to helping the Ethiopian people.

Choosing Your Doctor: 20 Critical Checkpoints

George D. LeMaitre, M59Infinity Publishing
All doctors aren’t created equal, and tuning in to subtleties is key to picking the physician who’s right for you: Does the practice’s receptionist “get to yes”? How’s the doctor’s eye contact? Is he or she a good teacher who patiently explains the art of healthy living? Updates to the original 1979 edition tackle the challenges posed by managed care—the author calls HMOs “Handcuffed Medical Organizations.” Armed with knowledge of the system, patients can get quality care.

Dreaming the English Renaissance: Politics and Desire in Court and Culture

Carole Levin, G72, G76Palgrave Macmillan
Still plagued by that nightmare in which you show up for class naked? Ralph Josselin, a seventeenth-century clergyman, could relate: he dreamed he was in the pulpit without a surplice. But most dreams in Levin’s book are rooted in the concerns of Renaissance England—one of which was blood. The period’s gory night visions provide Levin a way to probe the “fault line between the medieval and the modern.”

Photo: Steven Vote

Author’s Voice

Charles D. Cohen, D87

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories: A 50th Anniversary Retrospective

Poet. Artist. Social commentator. Literacy champion. Political propagandist. Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, wore almost as many hats as Bartholomew Cubbins (the boy who sprouted 500 of them). In “Yertle,” an imperious terrapin commands an ever-growing stack of turtles to pile up beneath him so that he can be ruler of all that he sees—until the bottom turtle burps and topples the tower of shaky shells. Yertle is joined by Gertrude McFuzz, an insecure bird who subjects her puny tail to an extreme makeover, and the boastful bear and rabbit in “The Big Brag.” In this 50th-anniversary edition, Cohen, an avid Seuss collector and scholar, contributes commentary, archival images, and little-known entries in Seuss’s collection of parables about tyranny, greed, and equality.

“Ted once said, ‘If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn’t show up.’ But characters like the mischievous Cat in the Hat and the Grinch who tries to steal Christmas were far more entertaining than the sickly sweet ones in the Dick and Jane primers that were used in schools at the time. Ted’s more abrasive characters also reflect a more realistic view of the challenges children face, leaving them anxious to see how the conflicts are resolved.

Yertle was actually a caricature of Adolf Hitler. Ted described him as ‘a little domineering guy who pushes people around.’ Of course, given the context of the story, Ted utilized Yertle to represent all tyrants and political bullies, but the Nazi leader was Yertle’s direct predecessor.

The concept that ‘maybe all creatures should be free’ now seems like a platitude. But Ted was writing ‘Yertle’ in 1951, just as Brown v. the Board of Education was filed. In that environment, he was challenging readers with his ‘maybe.’

Children are smaller and less powerful and therefore can empathize with creatures and people who are marginalized. Ted believed that children could be introduced to relatively complex moral issues, as long as they didn’t feel sermonized to. A six-year-old who objects to the tyranny of a turtle may grow up into an adult who is willing to protest for racial, religious, and gender equality.

‘Gertrude McFuzz’ and ‘The Big Brag’ share with ‘Yertle’ themes concerning the pitfalls of greed and pride. That gave me an opportunity to include in the anniversary edition two other similarly themed stories—with two new characters—that Ted did not originally include: ‘The Ruckus’ and ‘The Kindly Snather.’ They haven’t been seen in over 50 years but are delightful and deserving stories in their own right.

The Chase Group currently has a ‘Dr. Seuss For President’ exhibition going. What I love best about it is that Dr. Seuss’s platform is so clear from his work: opposition to nuclear weapons in The Butter Battle Book, protecting the environment in The Lorax, and concern about dictatorships in Yertle the Turtle.”

Also of Note

ALLAN MACLEOD CORMACK pioneered the development of the CAT scanner, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine, and taught for 22 years at Tufts. Imagining the Elephant (Imperial College Press) by Christopher L. Vaughan tells his story. The glam teens from Bradford Prep dish and dazzle in Golden Girl (Simon Pulse), the second novel in the young adult series by MICOL OSTOW, J98. Written as a series of blog entries, the book has companion content on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and its characters’ personal web pages. JENNA RINGELHEIM, G06, sniffs out the Bay State’s best seaside trails, forest walks, and mountain hikes for outdoor enthusiasts and their canine companions in Best Hikes with Dogs: Boston and Beyond (The Mountaineers Books). To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebrenica’s Missing by SARAH WAGNER, F02, is a powerful account of the cutting-edge technology used to identify 8,000 slaughtered Bosnian Muslims and its impact on the country’s postwar recovery.